Shrouded in Nature
by KaguTheGreat
Summary: Wild's attempts to adjust to a large traveling crowd, but he's used to the semi-silence of nature and has never been good in any crowd anyways, much less one consisting of 8 other versions of himself. When he goes to make dinner though he quickly catches that Hyrule is just as (if not more) nervous as he is. A bonding story between two natural born explorers. A Linked Universe Fic.


**A/N: This is a direct sequel to Meeting Up. It isn't required to read it, but there are some references to it.**

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Link was finding that traveling with a large group was a lot of fun. It had not been that long since Sky had joined the group right after him, and they'd just been walking for a whole day, talking. They'd swapped very quickly after leaving that temple place (he didn't know the name of it, and his Sheikah slate had stopped working once he left his time so he couldn't check), straight into what Four was pretty sure was the middle of nowhere in his Hyrule (though he said they weren't in Hyrule, and they were in another country entirely? Link was still very confused). They'd been walking ever since. After they'd finished telling the group how they'd all met (he, Sky, and Legend were in the dark the most, so Link appreciated the recap a lot), Wolfie- no, he had to call him Twilight now; Twilight had made the mistake of trying to do icebreakers and so Wind had been very dramatically describing his sailing adventures for the whole day. Some of the travelers were more annoyed at this than others (Twilight himself seemed to be regretting his friendliness, though Warriors was having a great time; he and Wind were really close, it was heartwarming).

Wind was detailing something about ghosts and pirates and the moon (Wild was hardly following) when Time interrupted, "It's getting dark, we should probably find a place to set up camp."

"But I'm getting to the best part!" Wind protested.

"You can finish it once we get a fire going, sandman," Warriors responded, slinging an arm around Wind's shoulder (surprisingly successful considering the height difference).

"Fine."

"There's a clearing over there," Legend piped up from the front of the group, pointing to his right (though since he walked backwards, he was pointing to the left), "looks big enough for all of us."

"Perfect," Time nodded. Four, who was leading (it was his world), must have heard them, as he changed direction towards the clearing. He nodded his approval slightly when he saw it.

The group quickly started to settle down for the night. Link didn't have much to put away (an advantage of his slate), so he stood to watch where everyone settled down. They stuck mostly to the edge of the clearing, closer to the trees, so he wandered to the center to start a fire. It took him a second to find the perfect spot, then he pulled out his slate and started scanning through. He pulled out two large logs, carefully placed the sticks he'd collected as they walked into a tall square, then started scrolling through for his firestarter.

"Hey Wild."

"Mmh?" Link hummed, glancing up at Twilight.

"Wait a sec. Four?"

"Yeah?" Four looked at Twilight questioningly for a moment. "Oh, yeah, there's no monsters around here anymore, we're cool."

"Cool, you're good Wild."

"Ok," Wild said, before pulling his flameblade out and sticking it straight into the middle of the kindling. The whole fire lit up in a mini fireball before calming into the perfect fire if Link did say so himself.

"Gods and spirits, cub…" Twilight groaned.

"Is that sword on fire?" Four asked. Link nodded. "Let me see it."

Link pulled the flameblade out of the fire (though it wasn't on fire right now, it had to recharge for a bit; hopefully Four had figured that one out) and wandered over to Four to hand it over (his eyes seemed more purple than normal), but that wasn't what he was focused on.

Link knew he wasn't great in crowds. He didn't mind them, in fact, often it was nice to spend time in a town full of people thriving and living their lives (he actually spent a pretty good amount of his free time in Hateno and Zora's Domain nowadays, between all the Lynel challenge runs and compendium completion, of course). The part of crowds he'd never gotten was the talking. Link tried to listen, he really did, but there were always a lot of people talking very quickly, and he never could focus on just one. He'd really been trying today, and he'd enjoyed the company, but Wind had been talking about ghosts, maybe, and Warriors would interrupt every so often, and Legend was murmuring something to Four, and Twilight and Time were talking, and Sky was humming, and Wild just couldn't follow it all.

What Link could follow was the opposite. There was a flycatcher in the tree above Legend (you can tell from how they flick their tails), a swallow in the tree next to it. There'd been a mouse den in the large bramble bush a while ago, but only the shell remained. It was the things in nature he could see, the movements, the actions, those small things that tell you everything (if the others could see through his brain, they'd laugh and say how his nickname fit him). So he hadn't heard how Wind had defeated the ghost moons on his pirate ship (or something similar), but he had seen how Hyrule had tensed when making a fire was mentioned, and how he stared at the fire like it was actively going to kill him. It was a curious reaction. Maybe he didn't like fire (a very fair phobia).

Link figured he'd ask Hyrule later (carefully of course, he knew how scary remembering could be). For now, he had to make dinner. "Does anyone not eat anything?"

"What do you mean?" Sky asked.

"I want to make sure I'm making something everyone will eat."

"You're making dinner?"

"Yeah."

"Oh! Thank you so much!"

"Oh, it's nothing, really," Link insisted, "I enjoy it."

"Oh yeah, you weren't there when he offered to flambé those bananas," Four remembered. A confused look passed over Sky's face as he nodded his agreement.

"We never got to try those bananas," Wind pouted. "I was excited."

"We got teleported to your world right before he finished," Time explained to Sky.

"I'm allergic to kiwi," Warriors told Link.

It took Link a second to process the statement. "What's a kiwi?" he queried.

"And it doesn't matter, carry on," Warriors responding.

Twilight whistled to get the group's attention. "Guys, anyone else have any allergies or dietary preferences so Wild won't kill us with dinner?"

A moment of silence followed. When it was clear that no one else had anything to say, Link nodded and started to scan his Sheikah Slate for a good meal. The conversations around him resumed to the point where the words merged into blurs again. Link was being watched though, and a quick glance revealed it was Hyrule (he hadn't said anything in that whole conversation either, now that Link thought about it). Link kept an eye on him as he decided to keep it simple and just simmer a variety of fruits. Hyrule seemed almost in awe as Link added some peppers to his cooking pot (which he kept on him nowadays), along with a small amount of butter (which he had a shit ton of). Link threw some cut up some apples, wildberries, palm fruit, and lotus seeds to the mix (with more butter and salt, you can't go wrong with butter and salt). He had to remind himself to make extra to feed nine people. This meal was decently quick, so he was done in around 20 minutes, though it felt like longer because Hyrule was staring at him the whole time, and while Link didn't mind crowds, he wasn't quite comfortable with constant surveillance.

"Dinner's ready," Link said as he pulled out some plates.

"That was fast," Time commented.

"Yeah, I just simmered some fruits, it doesn't take that long."

"Ooh, did you add any bananas?" Wind asked as he grabbed his serving.

"Nah, I don't have that many left, so I'm saving them for a special occasion."

"Awww, that sucks ass," Wind pouted as he took a bite. Suddenly, his face lit up. "Holy FUCK, this is DELICIOUS!"

"Holy shit, this _is _very good," Legend added, "like, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece while on the road, but this blows anything I've made at home out of the water." The rest of the group came to the same conclusion quickly upon trying the simmered fruits.

"Well I'll be, I underestimated your cooking skills, Wild," Warriors said jovially.

"I-" Four paused to swallow, "I should've guessed you knew what you were doing when you made the perfect cooking fire in a third of the time it's ever taken me to do it, but I was distracted by your fire sword. Here you go, by the way, I see how it works now. Thanks."

"Anytime," Link responded, grabbing the last of the food (he'd need to see if people would regularly want more, if so he'd up the portion size next time he cooked), and turning to see where to sit. The group had pulled closer together for dinner, and conveniently a seat had opened up next to Hyrule, the very person he wanted to talk to.

Of course, wanting to talk to someone and actually talking to them was a very different task. The two of them ate dinner in silence for a bit. Link tried to listen to the others. Wind was continuing his moon ghosts story (though this one may be a seperate ship and Link thought he had heard a complaint about no real ghosts being on the ship), while Four was trying really hard to explain bananas to Sky (Twilight was helping, or trying to help, Link could tell this joint effort was making Sky more confused). The latter conversation was extremely funny, so Link focused really hard on paying attention to it (he thinks he'd caught 75%, which was pretty good for him). It was around the time when that conversation turned to what flambéing was ("So you put the banana into the fire and burn it?" "NO!" "Well, kinda-" "Twilight, shut up") when Hyrule piped up.

"How did you make this taste like this?"

"Huh?"

"Um, the palm fruits, there's a bunch in my world on the beaches, I've tried them and they're not that good, but you made them good."

"Oh, yeah, I simmered them with some butter and salt."

"Butter?"

"Yup, goat butter, fresh from Kakariko village."

"Goat… butter…" Hyrule looked very confused. Link decided to move on.

"Yup, and salt." Link pulled out his current salt block. "This is rock salt. It's hard to break up, so what I do when I'm low on time is I just stick it in and fish it out and dry it at the end of cooking. Works just as well as grinding it."

"Oh," Hyrule responded, "that's extremely cool."

"Yeah, the Princess thought it was very clever when I showed her." Hyrule nodded. Link decided to bring up what he wanted to ask. "Hey Hyrule?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you not like the fire? I can make it smaller if you'd like."

"Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm just not used to having one, I didn't mean to make you worry, I-"

"Hyrule, it's fine. What do you mean not having one?"

"The monsters tend to seek out fires? I guess that's just a my world thing…"

"No, if I set a fire too close to enemies they'll see it. I can normally hear them though, they're not super cautious. I did set up too close once, they got sand in my dinner and ruined it!" Link complained with a pout.

Hyrule smiled. "Yeah." Link could see him debate what to say next. "I, um…" He shook his head. "I tried to set a fire once and the monsters found me within a half hour. It was right when I started adventuring so it- it really scared me. I don't really make fires anymore. They set one the other night, before we met you, and I got- I got really- I kinda panicked a little, so Twilight set up a check to make sure it's fine to make a fire."

"That makes sense… In the future I'll make sure it's all safe for a fire." Link thought of something then. "Hey, does that mean you haven't cooked anything?"

Hyrule thought about that for a second. "Ummmm… No, I never cooked much. I'd dry meat and plants sometimes, if I had the time, but I suppose that doesn't count."

"Like jerky?"

"Is that what it's called?"

"Yup!"

"Then yeah."

"That's really cool!"

"Is it?" Hyrule splutters.

"Yeah! I'd probably have a lot more dry foods if I wasn't given this slate," he waves it around, "it preserves food so I can store leftovers. Normally, the dry stuff saves much better."

"Oh, for sure, I've survived cave systems with just dried food for ages."

"Wait." Hyrule froze. "You've explored large cave systems?"

This was not the question Hyrule was expecting. "I, yes, I have, yes."

"That's so cool!" Link exclaimed, "I'd LOVE to do that but I haven't found any good ones in my Hyrule! Next time we find a cave, we're going in."

"Us?"

"Yes! We can take someone else if they want, as a treat."

"That sounds fun, actually," Hyrule said with a smile.

The rest of dinner was spent talking to Hyrule about exploring and spelunking. Link was so excited to find someone else who would travel in random directions just to see what was out there. He was slowly realizing that a whole different person was hidden under Hyrule's nervous exterior. Hyrule was just as excited as Link himself was, just not as ready to show it. Something about that seemed odd, but Link was too busy listening to Hyrule tell him about the cave he found in the roots of a dead tree to think about that right now (he needed to tell 'Rule how he'd climbed a mountain one day to see the sunrise while it snowed, he'd love that story).

A while after dinner was over (woops, this conversation had gone on for far longer than his conversations with anyone except Sidon and Zelda did, it was pretty late), Time interrupted everyone. Hyrule nudged Link, snapping him into the conversation (boy had he caught on to his horrid attention span quickly and correctly).

"We should set up a watch system while we're together. We don't know why we're here, and as long as that could be a threat, we should be on our guard."

"Good idea," Four agreed.

"We should do three shifts a night, then we can set an even rotation," Warriors proposed, "two nights of full sleep, one night with watch."

"It also makes swapping easier if need be," Twilight mused.

"Then let's go with that," Legend decided.

"I'll take the first watch, I need to clean up anyways," Link piped up.

"I'll take second," Sky added.

"I got third!" Wind exclaimed.

"Great, it's settled," Time said, finishing the conversation. The group, at that, seemed to realize all at once that it was late. Link went to go start cleaning up.

"Do you need help?" Link turned. Hyrule was standing behind him, eyeing the dishes.

"You should go to sleep, you're tired," Legend objected (that one surprised him).

"He made dinner, he shouldn't have to clean it all up too."

"You half _drowned _yesterday but have been up since 6 am."

"If you want to help, just make sure the fire's low, I can deal with the dishes," Link suggested as a mediation technique (Legend looked tired and ready to make Hyrule go to bed if needed). Luckily, this satisfied both parties.

Cleanup happened mostly in silence, as most everyone settled into sleep. Hyrule ended up also cleaning the cooking pot, which wasn't Link's intention, but he hadn't noticed in time to stop it and it wasn't too much work.

"Is…" Link turned around to look at Hyrule, "is this an apple?"

Link blinked. Hyrule, in the hand that wasn't holding the cleaned cooking pot, was, in fact, holding about a quarter of an apple which he hadn't put in the dish. "Yeah, that's an apple."

"Really?" Hyrule said in awe. "I remember when I first had an apple." Link cocked his head in interest, so Hyrule continued as he finally got up. "I was really young, like 15, a year into adventuring, and I found this tree with all these fruits near the front of one of the dungeons." Link gestured for the cooking pot, which Hyrule handed to him. "I was very nervous to try it but there was a bird eating one and I was really hungry so I decided to try one." Hyrule started to pull out a blanket from his backpack. "It was so sweet! It was the tastiest thing I'd had in a while. It really made my day." Hyrule had pulled the whole blanket out of his backpack and was now looking for a place to sit. "I tried to come back a bit later but something had burned the tree down. I haven't seen another one since."

"Oh…" Link didn't really know what to say as Hyrule found a spot by a tree (near where Legend was) and sat down. "Um, well, if you want another one, I have plenty."

"OOooohhh…" Hyrule said, yawning, "maybe I'll have one for breakfast…"

"That sounds like a great idea."

"Yeah…" Hyrule yawned again (gosh, if he kept doing that, Link was gonna get tired), "I should probably go to bed, Leg' will be mad if I don't sleep. Goodnight, Wild."  
"Goodnight, Hy'."

Link finished the dishes in silence. The fire was very low, but still alive. After he finished cleaning, Link moved closer to the fire and pulled out his Sheikah Slate, scrolling through to the recipes section.

He'd figured out what was bothering him during his conversation with Hyrule. What Link loved most about the wild was the life hidden within. He loved to see the foxes hidden in the bushes, or the bird nests at the top of the trees, or the Silent Princesses shrouded in dew in the morning. When Hyrule described his adventures, it wasn't quite the same. The apples had confirmed it for him; apple trees were everywhere in Link's homeland (he couldn't escape the damn things), so to hear that Hyrule had seen one singular apple tree his whole adventuring career was just a shock. It's like the heart and soul of his world was gone, not entirely, of course, but it was just so- so dampened and hidden. Hyrule was an enigma himself too, his personality shrouded under pure instinct and nerves prompted by whatever took the wild from his world, but for Hy' himself it was still there, ready to shine if given the chance (Link wasn't sure if he could say that for Hy's world though).

Link scrolled down through the recipes until he reached his recipe for simmered fruit. He marked it with a circle. He wasn't going to ask what Hyrule had done during his journey, that wasn't his place. Hyrule could tell them if he wanted. Link didn't think that was going to happen for a long time (if ever), but if his cooking could start conversations that Hyrule enjoyed, that could peel off his outer layer and reveal the soul that was just waiting to shine, then Wild would cook every meal in his book and more to amaze him.

On a second thought, before he went to bed after Sky started his shift, Link found his baked apples recipe and marked it with a star. That was one he'd save for a special occasion.

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**A/N: Thank you so much for reading! This is a Linked Universe AU fanfic. You can find the comic here: .**** . It's by jojo56830 and it just updated recently so now's a great time to read it all!**


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